You’re sold. You know you love JIRA and the idea of any business team being able to create their own forms and attach them to JIRA issues sounds like a good one. So what’s the deal with Process Templates?

An Entire Process in One Installation

ThinkTilt has created Process Templates for the ProForma JIRA add-on, so you can quickly and easily bring business processes into JIRA. While a Process Template includes one or more template forms (which you can easily customize to fit your needs), it’s actually much more than that. It combines several elements:

A request type* that allows your customers to find the form they need on the JIRA Service Desk customer portal

A portal form* which can be completed from the customer portal to collect all of the information needed for the request

Any associated internal forms which the team receiving the request needs in order to complete the process

The associated workflow which ensures that all steps (for example, approval by a supervisor) in the process are carried out

Basically, it’s everything you would need for a given business process put together in one nice little package. There’s even a wizard so you easily install all of the parts in one swoop. We think Process Templates are such a great idea that we decided to build a whole Library of them! The Template Library currently has templates for over 100 business process - everything from requesting a contract review to processing an overtime claim. The templates were developed with input from topic-area experts and are organized into the key business areas of Finance, HR, IT, Legal, Operations, Procurement and Risk.

Advantages of using Process Templates

There are two principle advantages to using Process Templates.

First and foremost, they offer a quick and handy way to bring your existing processes into JIRA. The prospect of converting to a new system, even one you’re excited about using, can be a bit daunting. With Process Templates, most of the work has already been done for you. If your process doesn’t match the template’s workflow, you can change it (such as adding or removing an approval step). ProForma forms can be easily customized if you need to add an extra field or more specific instructions. The bottom line though is that in a few clicks your ready to go.

Process Templates also make it easy to set up new processes or formalize processes that are currently ad-hoc, undocumented and inconsistent. (The official way to get a visitor parking permit is to send an email request to Marty. So what’s the process when Marty’s not there?) Thus, browsing the Template Library can be an exercise in considering, questioning and refining your current way of doing business.

Your team will decide what’s best for them, but knowing that conversion is easy and that you have access to a library of ready to use processes should bring everyone peace of mind.